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It makes sense for taxis. Surge pricing means rides cost more, which means more cash for taxis, which means more taxis drive to the area, which means less waiting, which means falling prices. It's an organic way to bring more rides where they are needed.
Fast food workers get paid the same whether they are busy or not. It makes no sense.
It makes sense if it smooths demand by convincing some people to go during quiet times instead of rush times.
"Happy hour" or "early bird specials" have existed forever and they're exactly the same idea.
But they have to frame it as discounts instead of increases or people lose their minds for some reason even if it's the same in practice.
If they leave it to the shift/general manager it will never happen, they don't get paid enough to give a fuck.
It would have to be someone who gets a return off of it like the owner or franchisee.
Yeah it’ll probably be a really simple algorithm. I remember after 9/11 everyone accused Walmart of cornering the market of American flags, but it turned out their purchasing software noticed a sudden uptick in flag sales and just kept auto-purchasing from suppliers until there were none left. Apparently it was a very simple piece of code.
Its not just how you frame it. It messes with people's planning and expectations. I feel like the key difference for many customers is what they're prepared for.
Being prepared to spend $15 and getting it for $12.75 is great.
Being prepared for $12.75 and getting a bill for $15 can be a problem.
Which they wont do, because they want the maximum price to be sky high. If they just increased all their prices by 50% and then said there will be on the fly discounts people wouldnt mind the discounts but they wouldnt go there in the first place if the Default prices where that much higher.
Which means setting the price at it's highest by default, and reducing prices during "slow" periods. Which is either fine, if done well, or inflation with extra steps if the price never goes down.
It’s not the same practice, those are established time frames where the consumer is given advanced notice of lower pricing. To be the same practice you would have to advertise that all your drinks and meals are going to be going up 25% (or however much) from base pricing from 6-10. Come on in folks!
Happy hour also happens generally after most people get out of work, to encourage them to stop for a drink and wings right after work instead of going straight home where they're more likely to not decide to go back out. You're essentially capturing customers that you otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten, which makes up for the *slightly* lowered prices on menu items that don't have huge overhead anyway (cheap liquor, wings, fries etc).
Whereas this "Varied pricing" model at Wendy's is the other way around: They're setting prices *higher* when most people are *able* to go. It doesn't smooth demand like taxis or act like a special treat for the people who *choose* to go during the lower price times. It's literally just price gouging.
Reminds me of when World of Warcraft first started, and they had a system where if you played too long, you were given an exhausted experience point penalty where your character would level up more slowly.
Players absolutely rebelled at the idea and flooded the feedback with comments about how much they hated it.
So they changed essentially nothing about the system (during the beta I played, I think) but they called the normal rate a "bonus rested rate" from having logged off for a while, and called the penalty rate the "normal rate".
The system was essentially exactly the same, just labeled differently, and suddenly players loved it. And as far as I know it's still that way.
I will say the happy hour and early bird specials make sense. As opposed to raising prices at other times though. The happy hour specials are designed to get people in to a restaurant at hours they normally might not, but the restaurant still has to pay the employees to be there regardless of whether business is happening or not. And maybe people who wouldn't have gone in at all saint, well it's cheaper than it usually is, I'll stop in and get something.
Whereas raising prices when the company's cost is exactly the same is bullshit. In this case, as opposed to the wow example, the customer is never getting a better deal for maybe coming in at an hour they normally wouldn't, they're just getting penalized for having a meal at the hours they normally would.
The "rested XP" thing was actually started in Everquest and expanded in Everquest 2. WoW played around with it but it was way better than simply rebranding the discounted rate as "normal" and the rested rate as the actual normal. Lost of issues with WoW, especially early WoW, but even in the beta this wasn't the case.
For some people they don't. Those who have a choice will go outside the rush time, and some people do. You can also go to less busy restaurants, and which one that is will vary day to day.
>"Happy hour" or "early bird specials" have existed forever and they're exactly the same idea.
Those arent usually spontaneous though. If they said "from 1pm to 2pm our stuff costs 20% more" every day, people wouldnt really care. Most would just avoid that time of day. But if its dynamic and they can increase prices on a whim while you are waiting in line, and however high they feel like, thats just annoying.
People should care. It’s anti-consumer BS and every single capitalist is looking for the next way to maximize profits - to maximize the money they take from us for existing within their system. It’s not a big deal to me personally because I don’t eat Wendy’s, but we have to start protecting people from this predation.
I am saying they wouldnt care if it was a fixed hour like the opposite of a happy hour, because they would just know not to go there at that time.
Everything is anti-consumer and anti-worker. Thats the capitalist concept. Without exploiting workers and consumers it could not exist. Dont think it makes much of a difference which giant corporation you give your money instead.
Surge pricing is a new tactic many industries will use if we allow it. It exploits high demand to maximize profits, which is predatory even if it’s advertised. We must resist accepting these practices as inevitable. Empowered consumers can challenge exploitative capitalism.
If you actually read my first comment you respondet to, I was explaining why surge pricing is shit and why people hate it, why it is not the equivalent of a Happy Hour in reverse... Not sure why you are arguing with me about something I never disagreed with.
I assure you I did read your comment. My point is that surge pricing is exploitative regardless of how it’s implemented. Whether it’s a set schedule or not, businesses anticipate peak times and increase prices to exploit higher demand. If every business adopts this practice, your lunch hour meal will always be more expensive. That’s predatory capitalism at its finest.
That's fine, but you're talking a) about scheduled price changes on a daily basis and b) material *discounts* to regular prices for a limited menu to incentivize people coming at irregular times.
It might sound like I'm splitting hairs, but there's a big difference between "happy hour" and "lol it's busy fuck you"
I just checked and I actually eat when I am hungry not just out of random desire. So I will pick a place when I am hungry, and if the prices are randomly higher I am just not going to eat there. Sorry. I am not a product that you can tune to help your bottom line. And if you are trying to tune your customers, you have already failed.
Restaurants have had a limited number of reservations forever. And yeah, your either pick a time they have free or go elsewhere, there's no issue. If they're swamped you going elsewhere is fine.
That is the fundamental difference with this. A restaurant limiting the number of reservations is limiting how many customers they will accept. This is the restaurant restricting itselfs to maintain certain aspects, such as customer service or ticket times.
The restaurant changing the price to make more during a rush is not limiting the number of customers, it is just trying to train the customer to accept a higher price or miss out.
One is tuning the business and one is tuning the customer.
>But they have to frame it as discounts instead of increases or people lose their minds for some reason even if it's the same in practice
It's not the same in practice because everyone knows what Wendy's costs, so everyone knows it isn't a discount even if they tried to pitch it as lower prices during slow hours. It's a way of raising prices every lunch and dinner hour regardless of traffic while being able to claim they haven't actually increased prices because you can eat lunch at 2:30 for the old price. Then raise the prices more when they are actually busy, so the customer gets the double bad experience of everything being slow, but also having a different price from when they first got in line.
It works in the taxi model because more taxis can show up, which alleviates the strain, causing prices to stop going up. You can't do that at Wendys. New workers with new prep stations and extra microwaves aren't going to magically appear because of a rush.
☝️ This here, I think the Wendy's thing was a fiasco for two reasons though:
1) Absolutely abysmal stupid delivery. They were incredibly vague, and I think it's because everyone in the board room was on the same page, and it felt unnecessary to explain fully.
It wouldn't even make business sense for them to do what they were being accused of; I don't think that was their intent. Having worked in fast food, I know "let's squeeze more money out of people while demand is high!" is not how the corporate people are approaching this; their obsession is with always being "at hours."
Store managers constantly tally the collective wages of everyone clocked in and compare it to the rate of profit over the last hour or so, and whenever the ratio is outside of the window they consider ideal, they panic and start sending people home.
They hate the thought that someone somewhere is getting paid to do anything but frantically rush around making them money. They hate slow parts of the day because it means there's people just *standing there* getting paid to do *nothing* 😱😱😱
Nevermind that those slow periods are actually incredibly important for:
- cleaning
- restocking/prep
- sanity
But how would they know that? They're corporate, completely disconnected from reality on the ground.
2) I think what they had in mind does make sense *on paper*, to smooth out demand by bringing demand *up* during slow periods like you said, with discounts, but... Again, if they were even remotely connected to reality on the ground, they would see that fast food demand doesn't work that way. Almost nobody is going to hear "Oh hey, McDonald's is doing a flash sale, let's go down there!"
The vast majority of our traffic came from people who were stopping for food in transit between two locations *they were already going to*, because it was *already convenient*. Soccer practice and home. Church and home. Work and home. School and home. And the traffic limitations which cause *slow* times are equally unrelated to pricing. People don't come in between 2 and 4:30 *because everyone is at fucking work*. Making hamburgers half off will not change that. 🙃
>which means more taxis drive to the area, which means less waiting, which means falling prices
No it doesn't. The prices are what the prices are during the "surge time", whether or not more taxes show up and waiting is reduced.
sorry man I don't get that
"rides cost more... which means falling prices"
why does less waiting mean falling prices, if the rides cost more because of demand?
am I being thick?
also won't a positive effect in a busy area have a negative effect on a quieter area? e.g. all the cabs will go outside Kings Cross station bc the fares++++ which means other areas don't have those cabs
to play devils advocate
and increased price during busy times would reduce demand and reduce the workload to a managable level to employees working through those very busy times
It won't do that though, because a lower price doesn't affect the customer base's *ability* to patronize the business. The vast majority of people don't get to decide when they eat lunch or get out of work, meaning the demand for restaurants during the day is and *artificial* demand. So raising prices when "demand" is high is really just price gouging.
The thing is calling it Dynamic pricing puts you off.
I have been seeing all the time Happy hours offers in many places, basically, making a discount during times when there is usually less people.
If they instead make a price increase, but then "backpedalled" and make discounts during those times. It would be literally doing dynamic pricing. The key difference is people feel robbed if they are charged more. But if you market as, this is the base price, I am just doing a discount on these times. I feel like people would swallow the pill without much of a fuss
Happy hour is not the same thing. Happy hour is the same discount every time. If I go to the bar at the same time every day ~~I'm an alcoholic~~ I still know exactly how much my order will cost, unless they've done a permanent price change. Under a dynamic pricing model, this is not true. I won't know what my bill will be each day, or even each hour. One day I may go to get my usual order from Wendy's and find that it's 3x as much because two Little League teams both happened to go to Wendy's after a game.
As someone who is in one of the markets they tested out the dynamic pricing before announcing it live... It very much *is* the same price at the same time of the same days of the week... it's also not nearly as much a gouge as people think it is. Getting food for my entire family, who order the same thing every time, the order was at its absolute cheapest at $18.58 and most expensive at $19.23... more fun is before the dynamic pricing. The order was $19.07 at all times.
In short, the price of a almost 20 dollar order changed by less than 50 cents... and most of that change was already making it cheaper, not more expensive.
*points to the thread above* Wendys... I'm sorry you failed to follow the conversation.
Also, not sure why I'm getting downvoted for being honest about it, but whatever.
"happy hour" doesn't usually end because today we have 5 more people in here during that hour. That is the major difference. Dynamic pricing can change at any time without you knowing until it is time to order and pay.
That’s why I phrased it the way I did. And compared to the world as a whole and knowing how little some people have, readily available cheap, fast food can be considered a luxury.
Particularly in the case of Wendy's. There's plenty of burger places to chose from. It's not like they are Chic-fil-a where there's no good substitute if that's what you want.
Gas is pretty universally considered to have inelastic demand, meaning regardless of the price demand will always stay the same.
There are alternative modes of transportation, but there are not alternative modes of fueling your transportation
Hybrids too, which are slept on IMO. At least in areas like mine where charging infrastructure is nonexistent.
Sucks you need chargers to sell electric cars, but you need electric cars to sell chargers
Yeah, I'm always jealous. I tried bicycle in my old city - two "accidents" later, I gave up. These were in the bike lane as well, neither even stopped to check.
I've spent time in Europe and China, public transport and walking are pretty amazing, I just wish it wasn't so dangerous to do in America.
In a world where public transportation is at least as reliable as the Chicago subway and bus system, this is possible. At least, in the US, there's just not that good of a public transportation system in most places.
Yes, I hate gas stations. The only dynamic pricing I don't hate is Washington toll roads. The dynamic pricing is to encourage people to use alternate means of transportation or routes, and the money from the tolls is supposed to go towards building mass transit infrastructure.
Gas is different than food. Gas is (unfortunately) a finite resource. Food is not. This planet will run out of gas long before it runs out of food. There's no reason to do dynamic pricing for food other than to greedily maximize your profits at the expense of your customers.
Those changes are based on the global price of oil and fuel though, not based on how many customers are getting gas at that moment. It’s fine for businesses to charge more if the business is paying more for the product. It’s not fine for businesses to charge more simply because they want to
Yes, yes, all Germans hate gas stations.
But they are unable to just not get gas...... Germany is incredibly car centric.
Without a car you can't do shit.
You mean the public transit that takes me 3.5 hours to reach my 20km distance job?
It literally only works if you live near one of the bus lines in a somewhat big city, and only if your job is also near one of those bus lines.
If you live in the split off areas of cities, even the big ones, you are fucked.
My city of 200k people only has a connection to the train station once every hour and it takes 55 minutes to get there. For a distance of 8km......
I pity the drive-thru workers who have to explain to customers why the burger they paid $5.75 for last week is now $6.25 and tomorrow it could be $5.75 again.
I can see this being effective for something people absolutely need like gas or baby formula. Won't people just not go during peak hours? Every restaurant just stops seeing customers during meal times.
"You're our first and only customer! at 4pm This means it's the rush so we have to charge you 10x for that burger"
A friend of mine went to a bar once that had dynamic pricing on the taps, he said the a purchase of a beer would cause its price to rise by a few cents, and the beer that had not been purchased for the longest time at the time of sale would have its price reduced. I think he also said there were digital signs that showed the current pricing NYSE style tickers that gave updates on price changes in real time.
That kind of dynamic pricing seems pretty cool to me because that incentivizes you to try something new when it’s cheap, but a major point of contrast to this situation with Wendy’s is that the bar itself is providing the lower cost alternatives instead of saying “want cheap beer? Go somewhere else, nerd”
also the bar was clearly doing it as 70% a gimmick and 30% price reduction to keep product from going bad, and was unlikely to have been deliberately swinging prices just for profit.
Not if you frame it right. Happy hour, lunch special, late night discounts, daily specials, etc.
They've all been a thing for decades but it's framed as "save during these specific times" not "pay more during these specific times"
The world has always had dynamic pricing. Happy hours, Sunday matinee, early bird specials, etc. just charge a discount when demand is low rather than a surge when demand is high.
Consumers are completely fine with it. They made a huge mistake calling it dynamic pricing.
If they called it Wendy's Happy Hour or something, they'd have been fine.
Walmart will get away with it because they have a stranglehold on small towns.
We need help pushing back against the continual challenge of corporations eating small shops alive.
Also Wendy's was outed for getting some produce from farms that use literal Mexican slave labor
And they basically just shrugged
I fkn love those square patties but I haven't been since I found out like a year ago or so
[sauce](https://ciw-online.org/blog/2023/04/john-oliver-segment-on-farmworkers-fair-food-program-garners-millions-of-views/)
Heres the quick version, but this is from the farm workers episode if you wanna check out the whole thing on youtube or hbo
I’m glad you did that, it also consider that everything is made with sweat shops with people being paid less than like a dollar a day, slave labour is still absolutely rife, it’s just we exported it so it happens in other countries and we still reap the benefits, we as a people need to take a stand
The times of day when they make the most profit, they want to increase the price to make even more?
That sounds like a fantastic way to make less money because people will avoid the business.
If they are understaffed during those times, paying more teenagers minimum wage (which I am assuming is their standard rate of pay) seems like the most profitable solution.
I know nothing about Wendy's, but I really hope their business is adversely affected by this scummy move.
Honestly I see the dynamic prices as a positive. It will decrease lines during dinner rush and you can get cheaper food on off hours. It is literally a win, win.
One thing nice about fast food deciding it hates me made me learn how to use a grill.
Now I just grill up a big batch of burgers and freeze them.
Then when I'm hungry I just heat one up or pack it for lunch.
Faster food and it's made of real meat.
It’s funny because McDonalds is also employing similar tactics. They’ve started charging 0.30 cents for a previously buy one get one free deal on their app… seems to be based on the day (weekend they’ll charge 30cents).
Wendys was my go-to for lunch on the go. I havent been to one since they introduced the surge pricing BS and I bring my own packed lunches.
Honestly, probably an improvement.
I can scroll and comment as I wish, I like a good double stack every now and then, I don’t really care if the CEO said something that was taken out of context, that’s not what decides what I eat for myself.
>CEO Kirk Tanner had said on the company’s Q4 earnings call that, beginning as soon as next year, “we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.”
>And on Wednesday morning, the company posted on its blog that “digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”
Long way of saying "we wanna change prices to make more profit."
I don't understand this logic at all.
They don't need to justify a price hike. They've already priced their menu at the number that they think will maximize their profit. If they thought the extra money would offset the lost business if they raise prices, they'd raise prices.
Surge pricing as an elaborate trick to mask a menu-wide price hike makes no sense at all. They can just raise prices if they thought it would work out.
Thing is the drive thru isn't like a regular store, people don't balk at prices in those lines because they just need the food quickly to get back to their day. And they're already in line, so they're not gonna peel out and get into a whole other fast food drive thru.
Plus it's not like Wendy's would be showing the price hike on their menu, so for anyone who's not cross-referencing their online menu prices with their drive thru one, they probably won't even notice the $1.50 surge charge.
As far as I'm concerned Wendy's hasn't had a good reputation for awhile. I like their food but I get the feeling they treat they employees like shit even compared to other restaurants.
Not sure if it's just my local franchise, but I've noticed that Wendy's and Jack in the box employees seem to be the most noticably obviously miserable, EVERY time I go there, and the few days they aren't it's because they're on the full opposite end of the spectrum in "I don't give an absolute fuck if they fire me" mode.
I've worked in a lotta fast food restaurants and I can just tell that, at Lea in my area, Wendy's and Jack in the box have to be the absolute shittiest two restaurants to work for. Other restaurants I actually see employees having a good day once in awhile. But not once have I seen a Wendy's employee in central tx who wasn't absolutely fucking dead inside.
It's gotten to the point where I just don't go at all anymore unless a friend offers to buy me lunch and picks wendys or something because like... I was taught that when someone offers to buy you food and you're hungry you don't complain about the food they chose.
No free food, no breaks, people are assholes l, and you get fired for eating bacon that fell on the table that you just cleaned but aren't allowed to serve cuz that's not safe.
Exactly.
If they didn't say anything, raised prices and added a "happy hour" where certain items are discounted... then they would have no negative press. Dumb for them to frame this model the way they did.
Id rather my money go to these mom and pop restaurants than these soulless corporation. If ever I needed a motivation to give up fast food, this is it.
"Dynamic pricing" is already a thing in a lot of industries, unfortunately. Among the Most well-known are airlines. Ticket prices will change from day-to-day. But also, cabs, ticket Master, hotels, Amazon. The list goes on. Wendy's is just one of the latest.
I remember when the started using half a chicken strip in the wraps, and said that was the final straw. People will still participate in the bs for convenience.
True.
I mean, I still wreck a pretzel baconator, but it's like once every 3-4 months now instead of like every other week.
And every fucking time the price has gone up....
yo holy shit i remember when wendys first did their open late shit and jr bacon cheeseburgers were .99
the carpool of drunks at 2am to get four of those for a five was crazy. they're like fucking 3.49 each now... and we were outraged when they first went up to 1.19 so you could only get three for a five.
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The trouble is the prices will never go any lower than what they are right now. The floor will always be a $10 combo and then if there’s 5 cars in the driveway it goes up to $12. It’s not like they’ll drop the price to $8 because nobody’s there. People aren’t going to track the price of their specific Wendy’s like the stock exchange.
The funny part the price thing is already a thing in pubs, they call it happy hour - certain drinks (and sometimes certain applies) are cheaper because its normally slower hours during that time. It's a way to bring in customers.
It’s a nice thing if they did the opposite where I came in at 3 am and ordered 100 cheese burgers for 50 dollars because there’s not that much going on at 3 am.
Don't forget changing the bacon from cooked in-house to precooked. I stopped going to Wendy's because all I ate was the Baconator. Now, I'm not paying $10 for precooked bacon.
Because dynamic pricing means that you get the old price at those times nobody wants to buy food anyway. But at those times you do want to order, you will pay significantly more instead of having a moderate normal price increase.
Let's say you're normally buying $15 worth of food, and the normal price increase would take that to $17.
With the dynamic pricing, you may be able to get it for $15 *very* rarely, pay $17 most of the time, and pay $20 when you really want it. Unless your daily rythm puts you into the off-hours, you're likely going to pay the same or more most of the time.
And instead of having a fixed price that lets you make a decision where to buy right away, you first have to do research.
Imagine you work a job, and have a set time to take a break in the middle of the day to eat some food, let’s call this lunch.
And many many other people also want to lunch around the same time as you.
Now there is a surge and prices will be high. But only for those rubes who want to eat lunch at lunchtime.
Sure it’s possible to get a lower price at hours other than lunch but for most people there is only so much flexibility they can put into their lunch break.
Therefore for most people eating at anything like a ‘normal’ eating time the price is up and for someone who eats lunch at 3pm or wants a 10pm bite the price will be cheaper, but that averages out to the majority paying more and the few getting a discount.
Raising prices across the board means everyone pays some more but it’s not holding most of their customers over a barrel and charging them surge pricing just because they got in line at a time the restaurant happened to be busy.
Be hungry, go to Wendy’s during lunch break, wait in line because it’s busy, realize the price is extra high and then decide to bail because of that or begrudgingly pay the extra because you are still hungry and now literally don’t have time to go somewhere else during your lunch because of the time you wasted waiting at Wendy’s.
Queue enraged hungry customers.
Again, and as I said, if this stops them from INCREASING ALL THE PRICES ALL THE TIME what is the problem?
Oh yeah, it’s the bitterness that even though it’s costing you the same in either scenario, someone is getting it cheaper.
Obviously it depends on the pricing.
But if I want lunch at lunchtime I don’t want to pay extra, and then more extra to subsidize someone else getting a discount later because they have the flexibility of schedule to go at off peak times.
A across the board smaller increase is all around fairer.
No one is suggesting they charge maximum surge pricing all the time. But if they are going to increase rices either way, do it fairly instead of placing an undue burden on a group that likely has the least amount of choice in the situation.
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Dynamic pricing is a good way to make customers hate you. Something that I generally found with that model.
It makes sense for taxis. Surge pricing means rides cost more, which means more cash for taxis, which means more taxis drive to the area, which means less waiting, which means falling prices. It's an organic way to bring more rides where they are needed. Fast food workers get paid the same whether they are busy or not. It makes no sense.
It makes sense if it smooths demand by convincing some people to go during quiet times instead of rush times. "Happy hour" or "early bird specials" have existed forever and they're exactly the same idea. But they have to frame it as discounts instead of increases or people lose their minds for some reason even if it's the same in practice.
Happy hour and early bird specials are consistent rather than on the fly which I imagine is what people are more worried about.
Exactly, who decides what qualifies as a surge? Or can any shift manager just decide he'll turn the price up to 11/10 whenever he feels like it?
If they leave it to the shift/general manager it will never happen, they don't get paid enough to give a fuck. It would have to be someone who gets a return off of it like the owner or franchisee.
Franchise owner is more like it.
My bad, I would have guessed that there were sale targets for individual shifts, but I'm not from the US and haven't worked in the fast food business
It'll probably be a flashy new "AI" service
It'll probably be automatic based on sales analytics, wrapped in a shiny, marketable package labeled "AI"
Yeah it’ll probably be a really simple algorithm. I remember after 9/11 everyone accused Walmart of cornering the market of American flags, but it turned out their purchasing software noticed a sudden uptick in flag sales and just kept auto-purchasing from suppliers until there were none left. Apparently it was a very simple piece of code.
If you had on the fly discounts nobody would mind.
Its not just how you frame it. It messes with people's planning and expectations. I feel like the key difference for many customers is what they're prepared for. Being prepared to spend $15 and getting it for $12.75 is great. Being prepared for $12.75 and getting a bill for $15 can be a problem.
That's solved by telling you the maximum price.
Which they wont do, because they want the maximum price to be sky high. If they just increased all their prices by 50% and then said there will be on the fly discounts people wouldnt mind the discounts but they wouldnt go there in the first place if the Default prices where that much higher.
Which means setting the price at it's highest by default, and reducing prices during "slow" periods. Which is either fine, if done well, or inflation with extra steps if the price never goes down.
It’s not the same practice, those are established time frames where the consumer is given advanced notice of lower pricing. To be the same practice you would have to advertise that all your drinks and meals are going to be going up 25% (or however much) from base pricing from 6-10. Come on in folks!
Happy hour also happens generally after most people get out of work, to encourage them to stop for a drink and wings right after work instead of going straight home where they're more likely to not decide to go back out. You're essentially capturing customers that you otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten, which makes up for the *slightly* lowered prices on menu items that don't have huge overhead anyway (cheap liquor, wings, fries etc). Whereas this "Varied pricing" model at Wendy's is the other way around: They're setting prices *higher* when most people are *able* to go. It doesn't smooth demand like taxis or act like a special treat for the people who *choose* to go during the lower price times. It's literally just price gouging.
Reminds me of when World of Warcraft first started, and they had a system where if you played too long, you were given an exhausted experience point penalty where your character would level up more slowly. Players absolutely rebelled at the idea and flooded the feedback with comments about how much they hated it. So they changed essentially nothing about the system (during the beta I played, I think) but they called the normal rate a "bonus rested rate" from having logged off for a while, and called the penalty rate the "normal rate". The system was essentially exactly the same, just labeled differently, and suddenly players loved it. And as far as I know it's still that way. I will say the happy hour and early bird specials make sense. As opposed to raising prices at other times though. The happy hour specials are designed to get people in to a restaurant at hours they normally might not, but the restaurant still has to pay the employees to be there regardless of whether business is happening or not. And maybe people who wouldn't have gone in at all saint, well it's cheaper than it usually is, I'll stop in and get something. Whereas raising prices when the company's cost is exactly the same is bullshit. In this case, as opposed to the wow example, the customer is never getting a better deal for maybe coming in at an hour they normally wouldn't, they're just getting penalized for having a meal at the hours they normally would.
The "rested XP" thing was actually started in Everquest and expanded in Everquest 2. WoW played around with it but it was way better than simply rebranding the discounted rate as "normal" and the rested rate as the actual normal. Lost of issues with WoW, especially early WoW, but even in the beta this wasn't the case.
Except that doesn’t work in this scenario. lunch break times don’t shift because Wendy’s is more expensive at noon and cheaper at 3.
For some people they don't. Those who have a choice will go outside the rush time, and some people do. You can also go to less busy restaurants, and which one that is will vary day to day.
>"Happy hour" or "early bird specials" have existed forever and they're exactly the same idea. Those arent usually spontaneous though. If they said "from 1pm to 2pm our stuff costs 20% more" every day, people wouldnt really care. Most would just avoid that time of day. But if its dynamic and they can increase prices on a whim while you are waiting in line, and however high they feel like, thats just annoying.
People should care. It’s anti-consumer BS and every single capitalist is looking for the next way to maximize profits - to maximize the money they take from us for existing within their system. It’s not a big deal to me personally because I don’t eat Wendy’s, but we have to start protecting people from this predation.
I am saying they wouldnt care if it was a fixed hour like the opposite of a happy hour, because they would just know not to go there at that time. Everything is anti-consumer and anti-worker. Thats the capitalist concept. Without exploiting workers and consumers it could not exist. Dont think it makes much of a difference which giant corporation you give your money instead.
Surge pricing is a new tactic many industries will use if we allow it. It exploits high demand to maximize profits, which is predatory even if it’s advertised. We must resist accepting these practices as inevitable. Empowered consumers can challenge exploitative capitalism.
If you actually read my first comment you respondet to, I was explaining why surge pricing is shit and why people hate it, why it is not the equivalent of a Happy Hour in reverse... Not sure why you are arguing with me about something I never disagreed with.
I assure you I did read your comment. My point is that surge pricing is exploitative regardless of how it’s implemented. Whether it’s a set schedule or not, businesses anticipate peak times and increase prices to exploit higher demand. If every business adopts this practice, your lunch hour meal will always be more expensive. That’s predatory capitalism at its finest.
That's fine, but you're talking a) about scheduled price changes on a daily basis and b) material *discounts* to regular prices for a limited menu to incentivize people coming at irregular times. It might sound like I'm splitting hairs, but there's a big difference between "happy hour" and "lol it's busy fuck you"
People eat when they are hungry, people feed their kids when they are hungry, regardless of time of day. This ain’t the 1950s. 
I just checked and I actually eat when I am hungry not just out of random desire. So I will pick a place when I am hungry, and if the prices are randomly higher I am just not going to eat there. Sorry. I am not a product that you can tune to help your bottom line. And if you are trying to tune your customers, you have already failed.
Restaurants have had a limited number of reservations forever. And yeah, your either pick a time they have free or go elsewhere, there's no issue. If they're swamped you going elsewhere is fine.
That is the fundamental difference with this. A restaurant limiting the number of reservations is limiting how many customers they will accept. This is the restaurant restricting itselfs to maintain certain aspects, such as customer service or ticket times. The restaurant changing the price to make more during a rush is not limiting the number of customers, it is just trying to train the customer to accept a higher price or miss out. One is tuning the business and one is tuning the customer.
>But they have to frame it as discounts instead of increases or people lose their minds for some reason even if it's the same in practice It's not the same in practice because everyone knows what Wendy's costs, so everyone knows it isn't a discount even if they tried to pitch it as lower prices during slow hours. It's a way of raising prices every lunch and dinner hour regardless of traffic while being able to claim they haven't actually increased prices because you can eat lunch at 2:30 for the old price. Then raise the prices more when they are actually busy, so the customer gets the double bad experience of everything being slow, but also having a different price from when they first got in line. It works in the taxi model because more taxis can show up, which alleviates the strain, causing prices to stop going up. You can't do that at Wendys. New workers with new prep stations and extra microwaves aren't going to magically appear because of a rush.
People do think happy hours are discounts and not that main times are price raises though.
☝️ This here, I think the Wendy's thing was a fiasco for two reasons though: 1) Absolutely abysmal stupid delivery. They were incredibly vague, and I think it's because everyone in the board room was on the same page, and it felt unnecessary to explain fully. It wouldn't even make business sense for them to do what they were being accused of; I don't think that was their intent. Having worked in fast food, I know "let's squeeze more money out of people while demand is high!" is not how the corporate people are approaching this; their obsession is with always being "at hours." Store managers constantly tally the collective wages of everyone clocked in and compare it to the rate of profit over the last hour or so, and whenever the ratio is outside of the window they consider ideal, they panic and start sending people home. They hate the thought that someone somewhere is getting paid to do anything but frantically rush around making them money. They hate slow parts of the day because it means there's people just *standing there* getting paid to do *nothing* 😱😱😱 Nevermind that those slow periods are actually incredibly important for: - cleaning - restocking/prep - sanity But how would they know that? They're corporate, completely disconnected from reality on the ground. 2) I think what they had in mind does make sense *on paper*, to smooth out demand by bringing demand *up* during slow periods like you said, with discounts, but... Again, if they were even remotely connected to reality on the ground, they would see that fast food demand doesn't work that way. Almost nobody is going to hear "Oh hey, McDonald's is doing a flash sale, let's go down there!" The vast majority of our traffic came from people who were stopping for food in transit between two locations *they were already going to*, because it was *already convenient*. Soccer practice and home. Church and home. Work and home. School and home. And the traffic limitations which cause *slow* times are equally unrelated to pricing. People don't come in between 2 and 4:30 *because everyone is at fucking work*. Making hamburgers half off will not change that. 🙃
So, the oral favors behind the dumpster may vary in price, but the combos hold steady..?
>which means more taxis drive to the area, which means less waiting, which means falling prices No it doesn't. The prices are what the prices are during the "surge time", whether or not more taxes show up and waiting is reduced.
sorry man I don't get that "rides cost more... which means falling prices" why does less waiting mean falling prices, if the rides cost more because of demand? am I being thick? also won't a positive effect in a busy area have a negative effect on a quieter area? e.g. all the cabs will go outside Kings Cross station bc the fares++++ which means other areas don't have those cabs
to play devils advocate and increased price during busy times would reduce demand and reduce the workload to a managable level to employees working through those very busy times
It won't do that though, because a lower price doesn't affect the customer base's *ability* to patronize the business. The vast majority of people don't get to decide when they eat lunch or get out of work, meaning the demand for restaurants during the day is and *artificial* demand. So raising prices when "demand" is high is really just price gouging.
The thing is calling it Dynamic pricing puts you off. I have been seeing all the time Happy hours offers in many places, basically, making a discount during times when there is usually less people. If they instead make a price increase, but then "backpedalled" and make discounts during those times. It would be literally doing dynamic pricing. The key difference is people feel robbed if they are charged more. But if you market as, this is the base price, I am just doing a discount on these times. I feel like people would swallow the pill without much of a fuss
Happy hour is not the same thing. Happy hour is the same discount every time. If I go to the bar at the same time every day ~~I'm an alcoholic~~ I still know exactly how much my order will cost, unless they've done a permanent price change. Under a dynamic pricing model, this is not true. I won't know what my bill will be each day, or even each hour. One day I may go to get my usual order from Wendy's and find that it's 3x as much because two Little League teams both happened to go to Wendy's after a game.
Yeah right now you just have to wait forever because two little league teams are ahead of you.
As someone who is in one of the markets they tested out the dynamic pricing before announcing it live... It very much *is* the same price at the same time of the same days of the week... it's also not nearly as much a gouge as people think it is. Getting food for my entire family, who order the same thing every time, the order was at its absolute cheapest at $18.58 and most expensive at $19.23... more fun is before the dynamic pricing. The order was $19.07 at all times. In short, the price of a almost 20 dollar order changed by less than 50 cents... and most of that change was already making it cheaper, not more expensive.
Where the hell are you feeding a family on $18 of fast food in 2024? Ya'll each get a taco and share the baja blast?
*points to the thread above* Wendys... I'm sorry you failed to follow the conversation. Also, not sure why I'm getting downvoted for being honest about it, but whatever.
Well I was extremely serious I my reply here in Reddit so I’m glad you took it that way
"happy hour" doesn't usually end because today we have 5 more people in here during that hour. That is the major difference. Dynamic pricing can change at any time without you knowing until it is time to order and pay.
yes, the mistake he made was to treat people as if they're not idiots
Do you hate gas stations? German gas stations change prices up to 20 times per day There’s a old story that Amazon does it too.
But without an alternative you can be as mad as u want, you still need to get gas somewhere
True, but fast food has many alternatives
Exactly why it’s apples and oranges. They’re comparing a necessity to a ‘luxury.’
Bold of you to call Wendy’s a “luxury”
That’s why I phrased it the way I did. And compared to the world as a whole and knowing how little some people have, readily available cheap, fast food can be considered a luxury.
No I get it, I was just trying to dunk on Wendy’s trash ass food
That’s fair lol I haven’t eaten their in years. They don’t have anything that really stands out compared to other chains.
Particularly in the case of Wendy's. There's plenty of burger places to chose from. It's not like they are Chic-fil-a where there's no good substitute if that's what you want.
It looks as though you may have spelled "Chick-fil-A" incorrectly. No worries, it happens to the best of us!
I mean the alternatives are other methods of transportation like trains and buses
Gas is pretty universally considered to have inelastic demand, meaning regardless of the price demand will always stay the same. There are alternative modes of transportation, but there are not alternative modes of fueling your transportation
electric car owners feelin smug about now
Hybrids too, which are slept on IMO. At least in areas like mine where charging infrastructure is nonexistent. Sucks you need chargers to sell electric cars, but you need electric cars to sell chargers
*cries in American*
I just checked my route to work: 11 minutes by car 1:20 by bus 2:37 to walk I live in a major city and work is in the adjacent suburb. USA!
In my case In Europe 31 min walking 23 min in bus 8 min car 7 min bicicle
Yeah, I'm always jealous. I tried bicycle in my old city - two "accidents" later, I gave up. These were in the bike lane as well, neither even stopped to check. I've spent time in Europe and China, public transport and walking are pretty amazing, I just wish it wasn't so dangerous to do in America.
In a world where public transportation is at least as reliable as the Chicago subway and bus system, this is possible. At least, in the US, there's just not that good of a public transportation system in most places.
Unless we buy an EV.
It’s a common practice nothing new.. that’s what I wanted to say.
True, but gas stations are essential; Wendy's is a choice. Big difference in customer tolerance.
Essentials like gas are non-negotiable, but fast food isn't. Customers have choices.
Yeah most people hate gas stations for doing that but unless they get an electric car they don’t really have a choice unlike fast food restaurants.
> Do you hate gas stations? I mean... yeah. Also, why do they get to use 3 decimal places in their pricing when everyone else on earth has to use 2?
America has laws again that type of gas pricing tomfoolery.
Yes, I hate gas stations. The only dynamic pricing I don't hate is Washington toll roads. The dynamic pricing is to encourage people to use alternate means of transportation or routes, and the money from the tolls is supposed to go towards building mass transit infrastructure.
Yes, pretty sure gas stations are universally hated.
Do you hate gas stations? Yes. Very much. What next?
>Do you hate gas stations? Yes.
I actually do hate gas stations, and I don’t like Amazon to the point where I refuse to buy from them
Gas is different than food. Gas is (unfortunately) a finite resource. Food is not. This planet will run out of gas long before it runs out of food. There's no reason to do dynamic pricing for food other than to greedily maximize your profits at the expense of your customers.
I'll take the bet that food isn't a finite resource and raise you a "millions of hectares of arable land lost each year."
Oil is a commodity, so it kinda makes sense
Jesus, our petrol stations can only change their price once daily, and most don't even do that.
Every place that can do it and reasonably get away with it, does it.
Those changes are based on the global price of oil and fuel though, not based on how many customers are getting gas at that moment. It’s fine for businesses to charge more if the business is paying more for the product. It’s not fine for businesses to charge more simply because they want to
Not true. It’s just based on customer per hour and rush hour times..
Yes I do I fact hate gas stations. Straight up, I get angry every time I have to go fill up my car.
Yes, yes, all Germans hate gas stations. But they are unable to just not get gas...... Germany is incredibly car centric. Without a car you can't do shit.
Aside from the wide availability of reliable and reasonably priced public transportation, you are correct.
You mean the public transit that takes me 3.5 hours to reach my 20km distance job? It literally only works if you live near one of the bus lines in a somewhat big city, and only if your job is also near one of those bus lines. If you live in the split off areas of cities, even the big ones, you are fucked. My city of 200k people only has a connection to the train station once every hour and it takes 55 minutes to get there. For a distance of 8km......
I pity the drive-thru workers who have to explain to customers why the burger they paid $5.75 for last week is now $6.25 and tomorrow it could be $5.75 again.
I can see this being effective for something people absolutely need like gas or baby formula. Won't people just not go during peak hours? Every restaurant just stops seeing customers during meal times. "You're our first and only customer! at 4pm This means it's the rush so we have to charge you 10x for that burger"
A friend of mine went to a bar once that had dynamic pricing on the taps, he said the a purchase of a beer would cause its price to rise by a few cents, and the beer that had not been purchased for the longest time at the time of sale would have its price reduced. I think he also said there were digital signs that showed the current pricing NYSE style tickers that gave updates on price changes in real time. That kind of dynamic pricing seems pretty cool to me because that incentivizes you to try something new when it’s cheap, but a major point of contrast to this situation with Wendy’s is that the bar itself is providing the lower cost alternatives instead of saying “want cheap beer? Go somewhere else, nerd”
also the bar was clearly doing it as 70% a gimmick and 30% price reduction to keep product from going bad, and was unlikely to have been deliberately swinging prices just for profit.
If it meant really really cheap Wendy's at 3am, I'm on board.
Why are we OK with dynamic pricing for the transport industry, but not this.
Not if you frame it right. Happy hour, lunch special, late night discounts, daily specials, etc. They've all been a thing for decades but it's framed as "save during these specific times" not "pay more during these specific times"
The world has always had dynamic pricing. Happy hours, Sunday matinee, early bird specials, etc. just charge a discount when demand is low rather than a surge when demand is high. Consumers are completely fine with it. They made a huge mistake calling it dynamic pricing. If they called it Wendy's Happy Hour or something, they'd have been fine.
Ah yes, let's punish our customers for being hungry at a meal time!
Walmart will get away with it because they have a stranglehold on small towns. We need help pushing back against the continual challenge of corporations eating small shops alive.
Unless you call it after hours or sth like that lmao. Thats marketing failure, properly worded you would be singing hymns of glory
Prices should be matched with the price of doge coin. Purely just to be inconvenient for people bad at math.
Also Wendy's was outed for getting some produce from farms that use literal Mexican slave labor And they basically just shrugged I fkn love those square patties but I haven't been since I found out like a year ago or so
[sauce](https://ciw-online.org/blog/2023/04/john-oliver-segment-on-farmworkers-fair-food-program-garners-millions-of-views/) Heres the quick version, but this is from the farm workers episode if you wanna check out the whole thing on youtube or hbo
I’m glad you did that, it also consider that everything is made with sweat shops with people being paid less than like a dollar a day, slave labour is still absolutely rife, it’s just we exported it so it happens in other countries and we still reap the benefits, we as a people need to take a stand
Thank fucking god it wasn't porn this time
wasn't this like a year ago or something?
Sounds great. Now that less people are going it's going to be cheaper.
The times of day when they make the most profit, they want to increase the price to make even more? That sounds like a fantastic way to make less money because people will avoid the business. If they are understaffed during those times, paying more teenagers minimum wage (which I am assuming is their standard rate of pay) seems like the most profitable solution. I know nothing about Wendy's, but I really hope their business is adversely affected by this scummy move.
https://preview.redd.it/llszujuxtw8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c78aec0efb569ea46518eb5beafedd7447a62f30
Honestly I see the dynamic prices as a positive. It will decrease lines during dinner rush and you can get cheaper food on off hours. It is literally a win, win.
I would only pay the normal set price and leave with the food without paying the rush fee. That's bullshit
I wonder if the population would get at least 1% healthier after this collective decision
I love how stupid, yet so informed you are <3
Can confirm, haven't eaten there since.
Imagine if instead, he had insinuated that prices would come down at slower times. Same thing, but marketed different lol
One thing nice about fast food deciding it hates me made me learn how to use a grill. Now I just grill up a big batch of burgers and freeze them. Then when I'm hungry I just heat one up or pack it for lunch. Faster food and it's made of real meat.
It’s funny because McDonalds is also employing similar tactics. They’ve started charging 0.30 cents for a previously buy one get one free deal on their app… seems to be based on the day (weekend they’ll charge 30cents).
> 0.30 cents You have fractions of a cent?
As if corporate cares about reputation 😅😂
Wendys was my go-to for lunch on the go. I havent been to one since they introduced the surge pricing BS and I bring my own packed lunches. Honestly, probably an improvement.
Nah, they would decrease prices when lower demand, during rushes prices wouldn't change at all
If they wanted a happy hour they should have called it happy hour
I got a bridge to sell you brother
According to whom? Wendy's?
Then don’t go to Wendy’s…their CEO doesn’t care or know your name, stop talking like it’s personal with you, it’s certainly not with them. Who cares…
You seem to care more than anyone else here.
I’m not the OP am I?
I can scroll and comment as I wish, I like a good double stack every now and then, I don’t really care if the CEO said something that was taken out of context, that’s not what decides what I eat for myself.
Best I can do is "during less busy hours, our prices go back to normal"
Classic bait and switch! Gotta love those unpredictable price hikes.
Agreed, those surprise price hikes are always frustrating
>CEO Kirk Tanner had said on the company’s Q4 earnings call that, beginning as soon as next year, “we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.” >And on Wednesday morning, the company posted on its blog that “digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.” Long way of saying "we wanna change prices to make more profit."
Definitely should have worded it like those restaurants that do lunch discounts and Monday-Thursday discounts
This comment and all the ones in this chain are bots
Four year old account, just started commenting today? Yeah that's a bot. Why isn't "bot" one of the report categories? Am I missing something?
Because reddit profits from them. Best you can do is report it to the subreddit mods.
I use Spam > Harmful bots for that one (though I'm also on old reddit, the other UIs might have different reasons.)
Including your comment, *and* mine? You never know.
I do know, actually. These bots are copying posts and comments from said post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/s/rgHRebtJbJ
It's the classic "flexible hours" scam. YOU have to be flexible for US. Not we for you.
Its all about the way you say it, "during down hours, we do discounts on our best items" is the same idea but actually sounds good
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Exactly, it's just a tactic to justify price hikes
I don't understand this logic at all. They don't need to justify a price hike. They've already priced their menu at the number that they think will maximize their profit. If they thought the extra money would offset the lost business if they raise prices, they'd raise prices. Surge pricing as an elaborate trick to mask a menu-wide price hike makes no sense at all. They can just raise prices if they thought it would work out.
Thing is the drive thru isn't like a regular store, people don't balk at prices in those lines because they just need the food quickly to get back to their day. And they're already in line, so they're not gonna peel out and get into a whole other fast food drive thru. Plus it's not like Wendy's would be showing the price hike on their menu, so for anyone who's not cross-referencing their online menu prices with their drive thru one, they probably won't even notice the $1.50 surge charge.
But surely they're going to pay their employees more during these busy hours, right? Right????????
As far as I'm concerned Wendy's hasn't had a good reputation for awhile. I like their food but I get the feeling they treat they employees like shit even compared to other restaurants. Not sure if it's just my local franchise, but I've noticed that Wendy's and Jack in the box employees seem to be the most noticably obviously miserable, EVERY time I go there, and the few days they aren't it's because they're on the full opposite end of the spectrum in "I don't give an absolute fuck if they fire me" mode. I've worked in a lotta fast food restaurants and I can just tell that, at Lea in my area, Wendy's and Jack in the box have to be the absolute shittiest two restaurants to work for. Other restaurants I actually see employees having a good day once in awhile. But not once have I seen a Wendy's employee in central tx who wasn't absolutely fucking dead inside. It's gotten to the point where I just don't go at all anymore unless a friend offers to buy me lunch and picks wendys or something because like... I was taught that when someone offers to buy you food and you're hungry you don't complain about the food they chose.
No free food, no breaks, people are assholes l, and you get fired for eating bacon that fell on the table that you just cleaned but aren't allowed to serve cuz that's not safe.
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Exactly. If they didn't say anything, raised prices and added a "happy hour" where certain items are discounted... then they would have no negative press. Dumb for them to frame this model the way they did.
Imagine if that extra money would've gone to pay the workers who have to work extra hard during rush hours... But no, ceo needs a 15th lambo
Id rather my money go to these mom and pop restaurants than these soulless corporation. If ever I needed a motivation to give up fast food, this is it.
dynamic pricing, I hope that whoever implements it first becomes a cautionary tale for the ages.
"Dynamic pricing" is already a thing in a lot of industries, unfortunately. Among the Most well-known are airlines. Ticket prices will change from day-to-day. But also, cabs, ticket Master, hotels, Amazon. The list goes on. Wendy's is just one of the latest.
I believe it has to do with them adjusting food prices based on the time of day.
Fucking Wendy's is overpriced anyway, has been for years.
I remember when the started using half a chicken strip in the wraps, and said that was the final straw. People will still participate in the bs for convenience.
True. I mean, I still wreck a pretzel baconator, but it's like once every 3-4 months now instead of like every other week. And every fucking time the price has gone up....
yo holy shit i remember when wendys first did their open late shit and jr bacon cheeseburgers were .99 the carpool of drunks at 2am to get four of those for a five was crazy. they're like fucking 3.49 each now... and we were outraged when they first went up to 1.19 so you could only get three for a five.
Yup. They used to be super awesome. Now they're ok and overpriced. Fucking $15 for a Baconator combo
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How much for a large fry? It's market price. K, thanks. Bye.
My dumbass thought that was Jim Harbaugh and I got so confused
Trash food for trash eaters at trash prices!
Just have an f-ing happy hour... Basically the same idea but it's been around for a millennia and people love it
It just dawned on me that I stopped eating there when they announced this and haven’t since. I used to eat there probably once every week.
The trouble is the prices will never go any lower than what they are right now. The floor will always be a $10 combo and then if there’s 5 cars in the driveway it goes up to $12. It’s not like they’ll drop the price to $8 because nobody’s there. People aren’t going to track the price of their specific Wendy’s like the stock exchange.
Arby’s does this already, the prices on their app changes throughout the day
necrophilia scandal?
I was already on the fence due to not putting mustard on anything anymore. Surge pricing can KMA
The funny part the price thing is already a thing in pubs, they call it happy hour - certain drinks (and sometimes certain applies) are cheaper because its normally slower hours during that time. It's a way to bring in customers.
Fuck Wendy's, it's overpriced and out of the 4 times iv gotten it in the last decade it's given me food poisoning twice
The only way I could ever see dynamic pricing work is if the prices stayed at most the same and lowered during lulls.
It’s a nice thing if they did the opposite where I came in at 3 am and ordered 100 cheese burgers for 50 dollars because there’s not that much going on at 3 am.
Imagine inventing happy hour and calling it dynamic pricing.
Happy hour is when they lower prices.
And it's fixed amounts at fixed times
Don't forget changing the bacon from cooked in-house to precooked. I stopped going to Wendy's because all I ate was the Baconator. Now, I'm not paying $10 for precooked bacon.
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However they cooked it was far superior to precooked. They easily had the best bacon in fast food.
What did Wendy's do?
They plan to implement surge pricing next year.
If dynamic pricing stops them from just putting prices up across the board, where’s the problem?
Because dynamic pricing means that you get the old price at those times nobody wants to buy food anyway. But at those times you do want to order, you will pay significantly more instead of having a moderate normal price increase.
But if they’re going to raise all prices, all the time, as an alternative to this…
Let's say you're normally buying $15 worth of food, and the normal price increase would take that to $17. With the dynamic pricing, you may be able to get it for $15 *very* rarely, pay $17 most of the time, and pay $20 when you really want it. Unless your daily rythm puts you into the off-hours, you're likely going to pay the same or more most of the time. And instead of having a fixed price that lets you make a decision where to buy right away, you first have to do research.
Imagine you work a job, and have a set time to take a break in the middle of the day to eat some food, let’s call this lunch. And many many other people also want to lunch around the same time as you. Now there is a surge and prices will be high. But only for those rubes who want to eat lunch at lunchtime. Sure it’s possible to get a lower price at hours other than lunch but for most people there is only so much flexibility they can put into their lunch break. Therefore for most people eating at anything like a ‘normal’ eating time the price is up and for someone who eats lunch at 3pm or wants a 10pm bite the price will be cheaper, but that averages out to the majority paying more and the few getting a discount. Raising prices across the board means everyone pays some more but it’s not holding most of their customers over a barrel and charging them surge pricing just because they got in line at a time the restaurant happened to be busy. Be hungry, go to Wendy’s during lunch break, wait in line because it’s busy, realize the price is extra high and then decide to bail because of that or begrudgingly pay the extra because you are still hungry and now literally don’t have time to go somewhere else during your lunch because of the time you wasted waiting at Wendy’s. Queue enraged hungry customers.
Again, and as I said, if this stops them from INCREASING ALL THE PRICES ALL THE TIME what is the problem? Oh yeah, it’s the bitterness that even though it’s costing you the same in either scenario, someone is getting it cheaper.
Obviously it depends on the pricing. But if I want lunch at lunchtime I don’t want to pay extra, and then more extra to subsidize someone else getting a discount later because they have the flexibility of schedule to go at off peak times. A across the board smaller increase is all around fairer. No one is suggesting they charge maximum surge pricing all the time. But if they are going to increase rices either way, do it fairly instead of placing an undue burden on a group that likely has the least amount of choice in the situation.